Derek Markham @ Treehugger reports on a new dryer technology:
Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), with support from the US Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office and GE Appliances, has developed a prototype of an innovative clothes drying technology that could shorten drying times down to just 20 minutes, and reduce the amount of energy used for each load by 70%. Instead of using heat to remove water from clothing, this prototype uses high-frequency vibrations – ultrasonic waves – produced by piezoelectric transducers driven by a custom amplifier.
I wonder about the gotcha – ultrasonics may need to be damped. Will this still require spinning? What about failure modes? It’s interesting since, as Mark notes, home dryers consume 4% of electricity produced today. And big efficiency increases are cool. The question will be whether this can be made consumer-tough and -safe.
